19 May 2010
Day 4: Rainy Day
Posted by Roland under: Travel .
Big accomplishment! I was able to get a full 7 hours of sleep uninterrupted. The quality of my sleep would be noted by Tom, who told me that I snored throughout the night. A little payback for the night before when he did the same to me.
Today was our day to leave Kyoto so we packed up our bags and left them at the hostel. The original plan was to do a little Kyoto morning touring and then visit Himeji Castle (the best castle in Japan) on the way to Hiroshima, but based on the unfortunate news that Himeji was just starting a 5 year renovation, we cut Himeji out of our plans to do a bit more touring of Kyoto. There was no chance we would see all of Kyoto (I haven’t yet either and I’ve been there 3 times now) but hopefully Tom could get a good taste of what Kyoto had to offer.
We went to a Japanese chain for breakfast and Tom finally got the Japanese breakfast he had wanted (despite my attempts to go to McDonalds). This meant soup, natto (smelly beans), some beef bowl, a piece of salmon and an egg to break over your rice. It would be quite a hearty breakfast, giving us the energy to deal with the rest of the day.
Getting a bus pass to let us bounce around Kyoto as we wanted to and the first stop on our trip would be Kiyomizu-dera (clear water shrine). But as we found out at the bus stop and confirmed as we walked up to Kiyomizu, there were a lot of school tour groups crowding Kyoto. We would compete with school crowds to get around the area but eventually we did make it into the temple complex. Kiyomizu is probably my favorite place in Kyoto for its views of the city which, while a little gloomy, still were great. Tom also did the traditional walk between the rocks of love (at a nearby shrine from Kiyomizu) with his eyes closed (and a little help by me to clear the way). I guess this means that I’ll have to help him fulfill his wishes for love?
At Kiyomizu we did something that I still haven’t done throughout my many visits to Japan, which is to drink the actual clear water of Kiyomizu. Supposedly it gives you intelligence, luck in love, all that good stuff. While we had to wait behind a long line of elementary school students, I got my sip of the clear water, let’s see if it pays off.
After Kiyomizu, me and Tom would wander around Gion and Maruyama Park to take in a few sites. Not much to see however with the rainy weather, we headed out to Heian Shrine to take in the obscenely large shrine gate. That would be the last Kyoto sight we could fit in so then we headed back to the station to get ready for the trip back to Hiroshima.
Awesomely, Kyoto station had a floor just dedicated to ramen, 7 restaurants all in the same spot. We did a quick tour of the area before settling on some Hakata ramen, which would be the ramen that we were going to Fukuoka exclusively for. Nothing wrong with a little preview though.
Upon my first sip of the broth, I knew I had finally arrived in Japan because the taste was amazing! Almost to the point where I wanted to tear up a bit the tonkotsu broth was so good. Add that in with the thin noodles that Hakata ramen is famous for and I was in bliss. I could only hope that the ramen in Fukuoka would be just as awesome (it has to be, it’s the hometown, right?)
We said our goodbyes to the great new landlady at Chita Guest Inn and got on the bullet train to Hiroshima. For the most part it was just one long nap for me, a longer one for Tom. The rain would be falling a bit harder in Hiroshima but luckily our hotel was near the station so we took one of the Hiroshima streetcars only a few minutes out of the station.
For dinner we had to have the okonomiyaki that Hiroshima is famous for. I found a place on wikitravel that listed the owner as an anime/manga fan who also loved Gundam, something that Tom recently revealed to me that he was a big fan of. So we walked over to the restaurant and was treated to a nice little intimate setting. The owner was hard at work behind the grill on some food but gave us a warm welcome. On the walls, besides just anime and manga stuff, were also posters of several cute girls and Hiroshima Carp gear. There would be a Carp game on the TV as well, so I know I was in the right place.
The owner was a joy to talk to, as he inquired about me and Tom as he worked on our food. Where we were from, how the trip was going, where we were going, etc. He would even pull out a picture that he had at a maid cafe (let’s get real, he’s an otaku but a great one) when the topic of Tokyo and Akihabara was brought up. He would be even so nice that he gave me his Carp noisemaker, when he found out we were going to Fukuoka to watch a Carp game. They had been obviously used very often but to give it to someone you just made was quite the thing. The Japanese are almost too nice. The food was amazing too, it had been too long since I had some Hiroshima okonomiyaki.
With some gracious hosting and great food in our system me and Tom would head to a nearby pachinko parlor. Tom would have a fair amount of luck, actually getting a few jackpots during his night but I would continue my streak of funding illegality with little to show for it. I’m almost ready to give up on pachinko at this rate.
Our lack of continued success at pachinko would lead us to call it a night in Hiroshima and rest up for the (probably) rainy day in Miyajima.